Flowers I have Known

     The flowers I have known

     My careless gardening

     Sporadic attentions

     Still they lift their lovely faces

     Seeking warmth

     Showing me all shades of beauty

     Diminutive purples, gauzy reds

     Prolific yellows, blazing blues

     Unique corals, and prim pinks

     For I can see auras

     When I let my lids half close

     Their blessings drawing tears

     Gentle rain, silver falling

     Patters on the roofs

     Rivers down the rocks

     Soaked backdrop of green

     My envy, my grief, my regrets

     I gather them in my hands

     Close enough to catch their scent

     Of perfume, earth, and love

     And let them go

If I tell you

The shattered pieces of a life I left behind

Rattle in my heart, clutter up my mind

If I try to tell you all about it, will you hear?

Or will you go screaming in the night?

It’s not your business, no one’s business

What I left there in the past

My privacy, my secrets, my regrets

Pain never earned, nor surpassed

Yet demon memories badger

And someone wise once said

Let it out, talk about it, sometime soon

Sometime before you’re dead

‘Cause it might kill you if you don’t

Demons eat you from the inside out

So, if I try to tell you all about it, will you hear?

Or will you go screaming in the night?

I tried to live right in the moment

But that’s just too small, too tight

Hope is all about wishful futures

Where we make it all come right

And the only template we create

Is from what we’ve experienced so far

Through our doing, reading, hearing

Thinking about who we are

So, if I try to tell you all about it, will you hear?

Will you stay near?

Or will you go screaming in the night?